Spielberg's Will Smith collab not a remake of Oldboy

Just when we started to get worked up over Steven Spielberg’s supposed plans to remake the batshit Korean epic Oldboywith Will Smith—will he still eat a live octopus, rip out a dude’s teeth, cut out his own tongue?!?—it turns out the rumors were a little overcooked. The movie Spielberg has in mind for Smith is evidently a new interpretation of the Japanese manga Oldboy, not a remake of the actual movie.

Or so says Smith, who talked to Film School Rejects
about the new film. “We’re looking at that right now. Not the
film though, it’s the original source material,” he told the website.
“There’s the original comics of Oldboy that they made the first film
from. And that’s what we’re working from, not an adaptation of the
film.”

Although the idea of a "new adaptation" of source material can
be a studio ruse to get around the remake stigma, it makes
plenty of sense in this case, since the original Oldboy is among the least multiplex-friendly movies in recent history (or, you know, ever).
The skeleton of the plot is said to be the same—man is imprisoned for a number of years without explanation and afterward seeks revenge—with major
divergences toward the final act, right around the time the film Oldboy goes totally mad.